Nikon 200-500mm vs Tamron 150-600mm vs Sigma 150-600mm C

At long last they’re all out, in stock and making every aspiring wildlife photographer on a budget scratch their head and wonder which one they should own? Of course I’m talking about the Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 VC, the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG Contemporary and the Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6E VR. These three budget super telephoto zoom lenses compete with each other directly at their price points, reach and heft; but the big question remains – how do they stack up optically? This was my quest when looking at the three lenses: I wanted to find out which of the three deserves the crown as the best budget-friendly super telephoto zoom. Let’s take a look at the lenses in more detail.

Two years ago, getting through the wildlife photography door required a five-figure cover charge. That all changed when Tamron introduced their 150-600mm f/5-6.3 zoom for the ridiculously low price. 600mm at a thousand bucks? It had to suck. But it didn’t. While not as razor sharp as the Nikon or Canon 500/600mm primes, it was still a lot sharper than anyone imagined such an affordable lens could be. And at just over a grand it let a lot more people experience the joys of wildlife photography. Tami became my go to lens when I would scout a new wildlife location – I could move fast covering more ground and if something amazing presented itself, say a bobcat peeking through the woods, I had a capable lens to capture the moment.

NIKON D810 + Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 @ 600mm, ISO 2500, 1/640, f/8.0

Now Tami, as I affectionately call her, has company – both Sigma and Nikon have produced competitors in the budget super tele zoom market. Sigma introduced not one, but two 150-600mm zooms. One, their budget Contemporary model is $1089, the other is the Sport model at twice the price and a lot more weight. It’s the former we’ll be comparing today – let’s call her Sigi. Not to be outdone, Nikon answered the challenge and has recently released the Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 ($1399). Canon so far hasn’t answered the bell – the closest they come is their 100-400mm zoom, which is over 2K and really doesn’t have the reach to join the Tamron/Sigma/Nikon super tele zoom group we’re comparing. Note that both Tamron and Sigma versions are available in both Nikon and Canon mounts. The Nikkor, AKA Niki, is Nikon mount only.

1) General Considerations

When you start getting out into the 500-600mm range you’re shooting at 10-12x magnification – more than a standard 8x pair of binoculars. There aren’t many photo subjects other than wildlife that require such reach. Perhaps a few sports where you can’t get close to the participants – like motorsports – or taking photos of the moon. If you’re not shooting small, shy critters, then you probably can get by with a lighter, more compact zoom like a 70-300mm or an 80-400mm/100-400mm. 400mm is generally long enough for larger wildlife like deer, elephants, lions and the like.

NIKON D4S + Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 @ 320mm, ISO 8000, 1/640, f/5.6

Most zoom owners shoot mostly at the far or near end of the lenses zoom range and less frequently at the intermediate focal lengths. With these supertelephoto zooms, users will most likely be spending a lot of time at the far (500/600mm) end. I’ve been shooting the Tamron 150-600mm for over a year now and when I check my usage stats 63% of my shots were at 600mm and 5% at 150mm, leaving a third of the shots at the intermediate focal lengths. Why lug such a big, cumbersome lens about if you don’t need 500-600 millimeters of reach? For birds you can use all the reach you can get.

As these lenses will likely be used more at the far than medium or near end, performance at the far end will be more important for most folks.

In general, most wildlife shots feature the animal somewhere around the center of the frame, not in the corners. Hence for wildlife I would tend to favor a lens with superior sharpness in the center of the frame over one with less sharpness in the center but better corner-to-corner sharpness.

NIKON D810 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 380mm, ISO 500, 1/1600, f/6.3

On the flip side, when shooting landscapes, corner-to-corner sharpness is more important.

Sharpness is not the paramount consideration when it comes to wildlife lens performance. Did I just say that on Photography Life? Let me state this another way. I could give a s#!+ about how sharp all the shots are that I miss. Paramount in wildlife photography is the ability to capture the moment. You usually don’t get a second chance when an animal does something unique.

NIKON D4S + Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 @ 600mm, ISO 5000, 1/400, f/6.3

Therefore attributes like autofocus speed and accuracy, focus-tracking ability, effective image stabilization, convenient zooming and the like become just as important as sharpness. Heck, even the ease of removing the lens cap with the lens hood on could be the difference between getting the shot or cursing yourself (Tamron wins the lens cap challenge, with Nikon second and Sigma a distant third). These attributes are hard to quantify, but I’ll try my best to give every lens a good workout and find out which one performs best in the field.

2) Fixed Versus Variable Aperture

Sigi and Tami both have a variable maximum aperture while Niki has a fixed maximum aperture. Historically, fixed aperture zooms have been faster, sharper and more expensive than variable aperture lenses. But that pretty much applies to the f/2.8 zooms. Those were made for the professional market and built to higher standards than the slower variable zooms of yesteryear. At a fixed f/5.6 the Nikon 200-500 is not a fast lens and only 1/3 stop faster than Sigi and Tami at maximum zoom. Is there an advantage to a fixed aperture? Very little it turns out. The two cases are: 1) when shooting manual wide open, setting your exposure, then zooming and forgetting to reset your exposure; and 2) when zooming wide open when shooting video. In case one this is pretty inconsequential given how much exposure latitude modern sensors give us. In case 2, DSLR videos are usually shot at 1/50 sec, hence it would have to be real low light to shoot wide open even at base ISO. Add to that that zooming is out of fashion these days (get a boom dude) and any advantage of fixed over variable won’t come into play for 98% of consumers. With Sigi and Tami, once you stop down to f/6.3 (only 1/3 stop slower than f/5.6) the lenses will stay at the same aperture when zooming. If shooting video with the aperture wide open then you can’t zoom without altering your exposure (because you’ll probably be at 1/50 sec you’ll only be able to shoot wide open in very low light or with a neutral density filter attached [95mm ND filters start around $300]).

So there’s little advantage to a fixed aperture in this case and Sigi and Tami are faster at their wide ends than Niki. Bottom line – I wouldn’t worry at all about one being fixed and the other two not.

3) Why Not Primes?

If most of one’s time will be spent shooting at the long end of these zooms, why not just buy a prime lens? After-all, it should be much easier to design a fixed focal length lens than a zoom as less is being asked of it. The reason is because the latest Nikon and Canon 600mm primes cost over ten grand. For that price, why not just buy a pet tiger and shoot the kitty with your iPhone?

The reason those big primes cost so much is because at f/4 they are fast. Faster lenses let in more light, improving AF performance and allowing one to work in dimmer conditions – conditions under which many animals are most active. The faster the lens is (given the same focal length) the bigger diameter the elements need to be to let in that much light. Bigger elements are more expensive to make than smaller ones, so much so that these monster primes end up with equally monstrous price tags. If your goal is to shoot quetzals in the rainforest, start saving up now. But if you’re shooting in brighter conditions (say on safari), you should be able to get by with f/5.6. Bear in mind too that as sensor technology continues to improve, cameras are getting better and better at shooting in low light. To me, the biggest advantage of the f/4 lenses over the f/5.6-f/6.3 lenses is in AF-performance. Camera AF modules simply work better when they get more light. When you get to 500/600mm, your depth of field wide open is wafer thin, so if you want to get both eyes of your subject in focus, but the subject isn’t perfectly aligned to your camera, then you’ll be stopping down to f/8 or so anyway. f/4 might give a bit nicer out of focus background, but the difference between that and f/5.6 isn’t really much.

All of this makes me wish Nikon and Canon or other manufacturers would produce 600mm f/5.6 primes that would be far less expensive than the f/4 primes, and a whole lot lighter too. But let’s stop daydreaming and look at the affordable lenses available now. We’ll break this down into the various significant attributes and compare each lens against the others in terms of sharpness, AF and manual focus performance and tracking, image stabilization, build quality, and general handling.

4) Sharpness

Testing telephotos for sharpness in the field can be frustrating. Due to atmospheric disturbances results can’t be as controlled as in a laboratory. Nevertheless, I doubt anyone buying any of these lenses is doing so to shoot lens charts indoors. If you look at the examples in this review, all of these lenses produce nice results. If you’re looking for the ultimate in sharpness, corner to corner and near to far, forget any of these lenses and fork out five figures for a pro prime. But if you’re looking for versatility and good, but not ultimate, sharpness, then all three of these lenses are good for different reasons. All three were sharper when stopped down into the f/8 – f/11 range. They all showed signs of diffraction at f/16 (not so much I wouldn’t shoot them at f/16 – I could sharpen in post and get good results) and at f/22 were getting pretty soft.

4.1) Nikon

Niki is razor sharp at 500 mm and near minimum focusing distance. Just look at the hairs in front of this condor’s eye (Condor in release pen awaiting results of lead poisoning test).

NIKON D4S + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 450mm, ISO 1000, 1/640, f/9.0

And at 1:1:

NIKON D4S + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 450mm, ISO 1000, 1/640, f/9.0

This is darn close to what a prime would deliver and Niki focuses down to 7.2 feet, compared to the Nikkor 500mm f/4E which only focuses down to 11.9 feet.

This was from a multi-focal length series shot ~10 feet from the subject. Corner to corner sharpness was acceptable at all focal lengths when focused this close.

At infinity, it’s another story altogether with Niki showing noticeable softness, especially in the corners at all focal lengths but more so at longer focal lengths.

NIKON D810 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 500mm, ISO 250, 1/500, f/8.0

This is at 500mm and check out the corner softness:

NIKON D810 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 500mm, ISO 250, 1/500, f/8.0

Zoomed back to 290 things get better – the softening in the corners isn’t bad and could be improved successfully with some spot sharpening in post.

More field testing showed that the corner sharpness starts falling off noticeably from about 60 feet from the subject to infinity. Tami and Sigi both beat Niki at long distances with Tami the best at infinity and Sigi better at 60 feet.

NIKON D810 + Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 @ 500mm, ISO 125, 1/500, f/8.0

That’s Tami at 500mm

NIKON D810 + Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 @ 500mm, ISO 125, 1/500, f/8.0

And the 1:1 corner crop. Some softness but much better than Niki (die hard pixel peepers looking closely at the full Tami version will see softness on the right side from decentering)

Confusing matters more with Niki at distance is that on occasion I did get good results like this.

NIKON D4S + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 200mm, ISO 800, 1/640, f/9.0

This is at about 100 yards and looks good corner to corner. I tried over and over to get repeatable results one way or the other with Niki at distance but never got consistent results. I would usually write this off to user error but I when I tried Tami and Sigi on the same scenes with the same settings I got much more consistent results. Bottom line is as much as I want Niki to be a great overall lens, I don’t trust her for corner-to-corner sharp results at long distances, especially from 400-500mm. When shooting at long distances I had better luck stopping Niki down to f/11 or more such as in the below shot at f/20.

NIKON D4S + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 220mm, ISO 500, 1/640, f/20.0

(For the record my Tami/Sigi/Niki side-by-side tests were done on tripod both with image stabilization on and off, focused at 100% in live view, exposure delay mode on and electronic front shutter activated. I would take multiple shots at each focal length setting, take the best result and compare it against the other lenses. Lesser results would be chalked up to user error.)

If you’re shooting smaller wildlife and cropping anyway or shooting a crop-sensor body then Niki is a good choice sharpnesswise because you’re cropping away the corners.

4.2) Sigma

When it comes to sharpness, Sigi had good center sharpness from near to far and through the range of focal lengths. Corners are noticeably soft in long distance shots at all focal lengths.

Like Niki, corner to corner looks better at shorter focal lengths, especially when stopped down, but even the four shot pano of clouds over the Organs earlier shows softness in the corners.

Nasim’s Imatest results suggest that Tami is better at the long end and Sigi better at the wide end, but I couldn’t discern this difference in the field other than Tami having better corner sharpness – center sharpness seemed equal. I got nice detailed results with Sigi at 600mm.

For subjects not requiring good corner sharpness, e.g. wildlife portraits, Sigi does fine. For long distance landscapes Sigi doesn’t do well. As with Niki, if this lens is mated to a crop sensor body, then much of the corner softness woes will go away.

4.3) Tamron

Of the three lenses I feel Tami has the best balance of near to far and corner-to-corner sharpness at all focal lengths. Here’s a rock squirrel at 600mm shot with Tami:

For long distance landscapes this would be the choice of the three, but what about wildlife? While not as sharp as my long primes, the results are still good enough for my editors who can be pretty picky about such stuff. I can’t gripe about a lens that has paid back for itself.

NIKON D750 + 150-600mm f/5-6.3 @ 600mm, ISO 1000, 1/1600, f/6.3

Here’s a Flicker at 600mm and nearly 1:1. Tami gets razzed for being soft wide open at 600mm but with some minor sharpening in post this looks pretty good. Stop down to f/8 and results improve as with this raven below.

NIKON D4S + Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 @ 600mm, ISO 3200, 1/250, f/8.0

At 60 feet and closer I don’t feel the current copy I’m shooting is as sharp as Niki or Sigi. However this is the second copy I’ve owned (more about this later) and my second copy currently has a decentered element (going to the doc for this soon). Sample variation is always a concern on less expensive lenses.

Because Tami displays field curvature it can cause focusing issues at wide apertures. For instance, if you focus using the center point, then recompose to move your subject near the edge of the frame, at that point the subject is slightly out of focus, requiring either refocusing using an outer AF point, manually tweaking the focus or stopping down to increase depth of field. I didn’t notice this as much with Niki or Sigi, but I didn’t have near as much time shooting them as I’ve had with Tami.

Note: Looks like Nasim’s 200-500mm lens sample showed superior corner performance at 500mm than mine, which shows that such lenses are always prone to pretty large sample to sample variation. Nasim will be publishing the results of his research in his upcoming Nikon 200-500mm VR review, where he will compare sharpness of all three lenses using Imatest.

5) Wide open shootout

Here’s the same goose shot wide open at the far end of each lens and cropped to 1:1:

For kicks, let’s crop the 500mm Niki shot to match the 600mm image size – this will require some upsampling on export.

NIKON D810 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 500mm, ISO 200, 1/1600, f/6.3

Niki at 500 mm and cropped to 600mm image size looks sharper than Tami. Mind you this is for a subject ~20 feet away, right in Niki’s sweet zone. Go to long distance (100 feet plus) and Tami wins this challenge.

6) Autofocus Performance

When it comes to AF speed, Tami and Sigi are both quick and in the field I can’t distinguish a difference when they are focusing on a static subject. Racking focus from 10 feet to infinity takes the same amount of time. Niki is noticeably slower than both Tami and Sigi.

When it comes to accuracy, Niki and Tami are both accurate, while Sigi has trouble nailing focus on moving subjects or ones in poor light. Sigi hunted much more than either Tami or Niki. While Niki snapped into focus on a flock of crows on a frozen lake (plenty of contrast there to help the 21-pt grid) Sigi kept hunting and hunting and never could focus.

I give Tami the slight edge over Niki in AF performance on static subjects just because Tami is a bit faster. Sigi comes in third due to her hunting issues.

What about focus on moving subjects and focus tracking? For this I did bird in flight tests. Sigi did poorly in the osprey test – if any bird in flight should be easy to nail focus on it would be an osprey slowly circling above a pond and occasionally hovering in place.

Ouch – dead center and cropped less than 50% – how could you miss this shot? Sigi was only sharp on about 50% of my osprey test shots.

Niki and Tami both did quite well on finding and holding focus on birds in flight.

Tami nails this Crested Caracara shot:

NIKON D810 + Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 @ 600mm, ISO 500, 1/1000, f/9.0

And Niki has no trouble with this egret:

NIKON D810 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 500mm, ISO 1000, 1/1250, f/9.0

I would give the BIF advantage to Niki for tracking better in low light. I even had good luck on post-sunset shots of ducks (quite fast flyers) with Niki.

NIKON D4S + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 500mm, ISO 1600, 1/500, f/8.0

Tami comes in second for tracking birds-in-flight and Sigi comes in last.

7) Manual Focus

I love shooting wildlife through foliage to give a sense of the individual in its environment – say a heron hiding behind the reeds in the mist.

NIKON D810 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 330mm, ISO 200, 1/320, f/18.0

This is a situation that will drive AF systems nuts. Another frustration-prone scenario is focusing on birds on rippled water – the contrast of the ripples grabs the AF’s attention often causing back or front focused results.

NIKON D7200 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 500mm, ISO 1000, 1/320, f/13.0

In such situations I manually focus.

The Sigma and Tamron focus collars turn in the reverse direction from Nikon. I don’t find this as big a deal as reverse zoom. If I’m manually focusing I probably have a bit of time and the opposite direction won’t cause me to miss the shot. What is a big deal is how small and ill-placed the Sigma focus ring is. It’s very thin, has minimal knurling, a stiff and sticky action, and is too close to body for balance. It’s as if manual focusing was an afterthought for Sigma. In contrast the focus ring on Tami is much larger and smoother allowing for easy manual focus adjustments. Ditto with Niki’s focus collar, which is big and smooth and turns the familiar direction for us Nikon owners. It’s also a bit further from the body for better balance. Advantage Niki when it comes to manual focus. Tami second. Sigi a distant third. (If you’re shooting Canon then Tami would win the manual focus challenge.)

All three lenses exhibit an equivalent amount of focus breathing, meaning when focused at nearby images, the image magnification decreases from what it theoretically should be at a given setting. Here’s a screen shot comparing the field of view of my Nikkor 500mm prime to one of the supertelezooms.

You can see the prime has greater magnification at 500mm up close. This amount of focus breathing is not worth worrying about.

8) Image Stabilization

With image stabilization off, all three lenses handheld to 1/focal length then deteriorated quickly below that. Nikon has two stabilization modes labeled Normal and Sport. Normal is designed for stationary subjects. Sport is designed for subjects in motion. Sigi has two stabilization modes labeled OS1 and OS2. OS1 is for stationary subjects. OS2 is designed for subjects moving horizontally to the camera. In addition Sigi can plugged to a docking station to program two custom modes – this can be used to customize the image stabilization, focus speed and focus limiter ranges. I didn’t have a docking station to test this. Tami has just one stabilization mode they label VC.

The above results are what you see in the final image, but what about what you see in the viewfinder?

Niki gives the steadiest view in the viewfinder, making it easy to locate, focus on and frame a subject in both Normal and Sport modes. However, Niki suffers from a large amount of “VR shift” meaning once you get the subject framed in the viewfinder and click the shutter, the mirror goes up and when it comes back down an instant later you see the subject framed off to one side or the other. The after-image you see in the viewfinder is what was captured in your image file, not your carefully composed before image. To combat this you need to frame more loosely by 10-15%. A 24 MP sensor will then end up with only 21-22 MP worth of useful coverage. If you’ll end up cropping a bunch for added reach this won’t be a big deal, but for tightly composed shots, say landscape studies, beware. This large VR shift is also noticeable in Nikon’s super-telephoto primes.

Tami’s image stabilization gives the next best viewfinder view, but with minimal VR shift.

When viewing through the viewfinder with Sigi, it’s a much shakier view than Tami or Niki. In fact, when I first tried the lens I wondered if the image stabilization was switched on. It takes a one second lag to get started, but even then seems to make little difference. The OS1 mode slows things down but still has a pretty high amplitude movement. The OS2 mode has a lower-amplitude shake, but it is quicker and jerky-looking. I found the OS2 mode more disconcerting. Either setting makes it hard to frame with confidence when handholding. If and when you do get framed though, there is minimal VR shift when shooting.

How to rank the viewfinder view? This is a tough one and depends on your priorities. Nikon seems to favor a rock solid view through the viewfinder to better allow for accurate focus point placement at the cost of sloppy framing due to VR shift. Tami treads the middle ground – minimal VR shift and relatively stable viewfinder view. Sigma seems to have tossed viewfinder view out the window in favor of final image results. If you are going to handhold landscapes or other tightly composed shots then Tami wins. If you’ll be cropping after the fact I would favor Niki.

All this raises the question of how important is image stabilization performance to you? It depends on your subjects (and how shaky your hands are). If you handhold shoot ungulates, sloths, tortoises and other subjects that won’t budge in 1/60 second, then image stabilization is a big deal.

However if you are shooting subjects like birds, which twitch a lot causing blurring even at 1/500th, then image stabilization performance will be less of a priority.

NIKON D4S + Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 @ 600mm, ISO 1250, 1/1250, f/8.0

I could turn image stabilization off and still get this shot.

9) Flare

In strong backlight all three lenses performed the same in regards to flare. These lenses don’t have the expensive coatings of the megabuck primes which will handily outperform them in such situations.

Here’s three unprocessed shots (except 1:1 cropping) of an eagle in a very hot backlit situation from long distance on a DX body – don’t expect much in terms of sharpness – these are just here to judge overall flare.

10) Bokeh, Bokeh, Bokeh

Bokeh is such a subjective quality I’ll leave it up to the readers to check all the images in this post and make their own opinions. Here’s one example with some out of focus highlights to help you get started. These were all shot at 500mm then cropped about 50%. First shot at f/6.3, second at f/9.

With Sigi it looks similar to Tami but a lighter rim and a bit evener inside. By the evenly lit circle test, Sigi wins, Tami second, Niki a distant third. But as stated above, bokeh is subjective and more than just out of focus pinpoint highlights. With broader out of focus features (no pinpoint highlights) Niki produced this.

NIKON D4S + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 500mm, ISO 1000, 1/400, f/10.0

11) Build Quality and Handling

Upon unpacking, all three lenses appear to have similar build quality as far as materials and general appearance go. Tami and Sigi feel nearly identical as far as weight and girth. There’s more of Niki to love, as she is noticeably fatter and heavier. On the stat sheets 9 – 10 ounces more doesn’t seem like much, but just carry it around your neck for an afternoon or try to handhold pointing up at an eagle for an extended period and you’ll definitely notice the weight disadvantage.

Niki has the smoothest zoom action, though due to her larger barrel diameter, it can require regripping the zoom collar to get from 200mm all the way to 500mm. I can zoom both Tami and Sigi from 200-500 without regripping, but to go all the way from 150-600 requires me to regrip. Tami zooms in the same direction as Nikon zooms, while Sigi zooms in the wrong, er, I mean Canon, direction. This drove me nuts. It might be something I could get used to over time, but in the month of testing I found myself consistently zooming the opposite direction I was used to and missing shots because of it. If you shoot Canon however, this zoom direction might be what tips the scales in favor of Sigi for you.

All three lenses can be operated as push pulls – grabbing the front end of the lens barrel or the hood and pushing out to zoom to greater magnification. The wide barrel of the Nikon made this awkward for me. Tami works well this way because it needs less force to zoom it out. Sigi has the stiffest zoom action of the three and doesn’t do well as a push-pull though such stiffness might loosen a bit with use. Personally I don’t recommend push-pulI zooming because I feel quickly extending a lens barrel could exacerbate dust pump issues (though I have no empirical evidence of this).

Which leads us to weather sealing. All three of these lenses expand and contract the barrel a lot when zoomed and though they all have a rubber gasket at the lens mount, none of them are fully weather-sealed (however the Sigma Sport in the next price range up is).

The combination of long barrel expansion/contraction and lack of full sealing causes the lens to suck dust into its interior. You end up with this.

This is what it looks like inside Tami after half a year of heavy shooting – this isn’t the front of the lens, but the surface of the element behind the front element. She’s a nasty dust pump. The bulk of my shooting is in Arizona – a dusty state at best. I’ve shot a lot of lenses in my career, but never seen one pump in so much dust. If all that junk was on one of your filters you’d clean it off. But to clean out the inside of your lens, you pretty much want to send it to the service center. That dust has the potential to lessen the contrast of your images and make them look flat. In practice this would only be noticeable when shooting into the sun, prompting you to boost the contrast back up in post. See the backlit shots of the eagle and dusty old Tami looks no worse than the new copies of Niki or Sigi. Interior dust is not a deal breaker, it just looks nasty.

Note that though I have evidence of this issue in Tami, all three of these lenses could end up have the same dust pump issue. My gut feeling is that perhaps the issue might be worse with Tami because she zooms faster and with less resistance. Unless you consistently shoot in dusty conditions I wouldn’t choose one over the other based on this.

One thing that has cost me shots with Tami is AF freeze-ups This seems to happen once, sometimes twice, every time we go out and shoot more than 400 frames without a lens switch. It’s easy to fix, just re-rack the lens in the mount; but this takes precious seconds to do this and eventually ended up costing me some shots. Still, the number of shots Tami got for me, due to her convenience and performance, made up for her occasional freeze-ups. I sent her to the doc three times for this issue, but every time Tamron service sent her back she’d freeze up again the very next shoot. Eventually Tamron sent me a new copy which hasn’t frozen up as much, but has a few times. Given that two additional copies I’ve shot have also frozen up on me, I have to think this isn’t just a case of a bad copy, but rather some more inherent issue. Of the four copies I’ve shot, every one has frozen up at some point. Bear in mind that these freeze-ups only seem to occur after I’ve already shot a bunch of frames. I’m a heavier shooter than most (hey leave my beer gut out of this) so if you don’t blaze away lots of long burst sequences you may never get one of these freeze-ups. Another note on the freeze-ups is that they seemed to increase in frequency as my original copy got older. None the first week, then maybe once a week, then eventually nearly every session after I’d been shooting it for several months. I didn’t experience any such freeze-ups with Sigi or Niki.

12) Other Features

12.1) Zoom lock

Zoom locks prevent the barrel from extending when you’re walking about. All three of these lenses will extend to full length in short order while walking if you don’t use the lock. I rarely use zoom locks as I mostly shoot these lenses at maximum focal length, therefore having the barrel fully extended saves me precious seconds.

Niki has a hard zoom lock (must flip switch to unlock) at 200 mm.

Tami has hard zoom locks at 150mm and 400mm.

Sigi has a hard lock at 150mm. It also has soft locks at 180, 200, 250, 300, 400, 500, and 600 millimeters. To disengage the soft lock takes a twist of the zoom ring – quicker than flipping a lock switch. If I utilized zoom locks regularly I think this would be a good feature.

Sigi wins zooms locks, Tami and Niki tie for second

12.2) Focus Limiter Switch

Sigi has three modes instead of two like Nikon and Tamron. All three lenses have a long distance setting for what I would consider default wildlife mode. For Tami this is 15m to infinity, for Sigi 10m to infinity and for Niki 6m to infinity. All three have a “full” setting for when you get closer to your subject. Sigi adds a ”close only” setting (2.8m to 10m) – I could see this as being useful to expedite AF at close distances, however I found it is easy to bump this switch to “close only” mode and then think the AF has frozen. This cost me shots the first day but later I got accustomed to not bumping the switch. Toss up between the three.

12.3) Tripod Foot/Collar

All three lenses have a rotating removable tripod foot/collar. With Sigi the short tripod foot makes this a bit scary to carry by the foot – there’s not much to grip – my paws can only get two fingers on it. Hence why the lens comes with a strap that mounts to the foot. Furthering Sigi’s tripod foot woes is how the tightening knob jabs into your thumb if you hand-support the lens by the foot as I like to.

Niki’s tripod foot is nice and long giving plenty of room to grip it – 3.5 of my finger’s worth. Sadly it has no lip on the end or finger knurls like the Sigma or Tamron, therefore it doesn’t feel all that secure carrying the camera/lens by the foot. Nikon, please get a clue and add a lip or better yet a lip plus the grippy rubber found on your supertele primes. While you’re at it, how about casting in some Arca-Swiss grooves.

Tami’s foot gives me a three-finger grip with a slight lip on the end – the most secure of the three to carry by the foot. All of the collars rotate with the same amount of ease. None have Arca-Swiss grooves so you might find yourself adding a plate. Tami first, Niki second, Sigi third.

12.4) Lens Hood

Sigi’s knurling on her lens hood makes it easy to quickly reverse it from stowed mode to shooting mode. Tami and Niki’s hoods are both a pain to untwist from stowed mode. Sigi’s hood is short compared to Nikon and Tamron which could result in more flare in backlit situations. Sigi comes in last – tied with Niki and Tami – they all need reengineering.

12.5) Case

Sigi comes with a nice padded nylon carrying case – probably why it costs 20 bucks more than Tami with comes with just a plastic bag. Niki comes with the standard Nikon black sock. Sigi wins big time in the case department, Niki second, Tami a distant third.

13) Teleconverters?

My Nikon teleconverters are not compatible with Tami or Sigi. Sigma and Tamron make teleconverters compatible with their lenses but I didn’t have those to test. Because Tami and Sigi have more reach to start with, 600mm versus 500mm, then it’s natural to wonder if Niki, plus a 1.4x teleconverter would deliver results to rival Tami and Sigi at 600mm. Mind you, the Nikon teleconverters cost about 500 dollars, so by the time you add one to the 200-500mm you’re looking at 1900 bucks worth of glass – way beyond the price tag of either Tami or Sigi and closer to that of the Sigma 150-600mm Sport edition.

I shot Niki with the Nikon TC14III 1.4x teleconverter on a D810. The results were nowhere near as good as the Nikkor 500mm E plus TC14III, but if I work the better files in post and add sharpening I can get results I’d consider good for web use, but not acceptable for demanding print or publication uses.

NIKON D810 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 700mm, ISO 400, 1/640, f/8.0

Niki with TC14III (700mm) and no processing.

NIKON D810 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 700mm, ISO 400, 1/640, f/8.0

With post-processing it still looks mediocre, but pretty typical of the results I got with this combo. At best I got results like this:

NIKON D810 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 700mm, ISO 800, 1/800, f/10.0

This had +77 sharpening applied in Lightroom and other tweaks.

The results are better than the 80-400mm plus TC14II, but that combo in my opinion is simply abysmal.

The better alternative for getting more reach from the 200-500mm (or either 150-600mm) is to mount them on a DX body like the D7200 or D500. This would give extra reach and trim away the soft edges.

On a lark I mounted the Nikon TC17II on the 200-500mm and got some surprisingly good results. By surprising I mean reasonably close to what I would get with my 500mm prime and the 1.7x (a combination that’s not nearly as sharp as the 1.4x plus 500mm prime).

NIKON D810 + Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 @ 850mm, ISO 400, 1/400, f/9.5

Wow, that’s 850mm worth of dove at 1 to 1. I wouldn’t get too excited by this right now though, as adding the 1.7x narrows the widest aperture to f/9.5 – too slow to autofocus in anything but the brightest daylight. This might change though with the new more sensitive AF systems being introduced in the D5 and D500 that purportedly will focus at -4 EV.

14) Conclusion

If you handed me any of these lenses two years ago and told me they cost less than two grand I would be delighted by the results. They aren’t a challenge to Nikon and Canon’s supertelephoto primes, but for the price these give great value. Now that there are three to pick from, the obvious question is which one to choose. I’ll summarize the pros and cons first, then give some suggestions on which lens will be good for which shooters.

15) Which lens for which shooter?

Nikon Shooters For all around shooting – wildlife plus landscapes – I suggest Tami as the best compromise, but be picky and make sure you get a good copy. For wildlife only, Niki’s razor sharp center results tip the scales in her favor. Consider mating her to a DX body to get rid of the soft corners and get more reach.

Canon Shooters Go for Sigi if you mainly shoot wildlife and want the familiar zoom and focus directions. Consider Tami (use it push-pull if you don’t like the zoom direction) if you want an all-around wildlife plus landscape lens.

16) Addendum

Our readers’ comments have shed some good light on this subject. Many have replied to defend their lens choice saying it didn’t display a weakness I found in the copies I tested. This reminds us that all lenses, whether they are third party or Nikon or Canon, are prone to sample variation which raises the question of how does one know if they got a good copy or not.

The short answer is if you enjoy shooting with your lens and are happy with your results then you have a good copy.

The long answer is to do the testing as outlined in the article – do it at multiple focal lengths, apertures and distances and carefully scrutinize the results. This is very tedious. If you don’t have other copies to compare to then discerning sharpness issues will be difficult unless it’s an issue with decentering which causes the image to be softer on one side of the frame than the other. Bear in mind how you plan to use the lens and how important issues like corner sharpness or sharpness up close versus far away are to you. Remember these are “bargain” supertelephoto zooms, so don’t expect them to perform like $10000 primes. Remember too that you will be postprocessing your images and can add contrast (easy) and sharpness (to a small degree). Go ahead and postprocess some images as you would and view your results at final output (how big you realistically might print it out, 4″x6″?, 8″x10″?, 16″x20″?, 30″x45″?) and choose a lens that meets your needs. If you share your photos via the web and don’t shoot for publications or print big, you don’t need an expensive pro prime. If you handhold your sharpness will suffer compared to shooting on a tripod so bear that in mind too. Be realistic and don’t fret over weakness seen at 1:1 on your computer that it is indiscernible in final output.

If you’re unhappy with your copy return it and try a new one. If you don’t like that then try a different copy or a different manufacturer’s lens.

17) Where to Buy

As of 02/10/2016, all three lenses are currently available at our trusted partner B&H Photo Video:

Related articles:

About John Sherman

John “Verm” Sherman is one of only 25,000 wildlife and nature photographers based out of Flagstaff, Arizona. In 2012 he was awarded Flagstaff Photography Center’s Emerging Artist of the Year award. He has since submerged into internet notoriety but comes up occasionally to contribute to Arizona Highways Magazine. Visit his website and blog at www.vermphoto.com.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Jason

February 10, 2016 at 2:51 pm

I’m not sure why the Sigma Sport was left out? Wouldn’t that be a better test candidate than the Contemporary? When I was looking for a lens of this type, the Sigma Contemporary never entered to equation as a possibility.

SB is right about the review being about comparing the lenses with similar price points. The Sport is nearly double the price of Sigi or Tami, not to mention a whole lot heavier. I have shot the Sport very briefly on a Canon 7DMkII – results looked quite good (albeit on a crop sensor so I didn’t get to see edge performance). Even though the focal length range is equivalent, the Sport is in a different category budgetwise and weightwise. A quick note about the Sport is that the out-of-the-box image stabilization is similar to my comments about the Contemporary – pretty shaky viewfinder view compared to Canon or Nikon lenses.

Thanks for a good review. In Australia there is not that much difference in price between the Sigma Sport and the Nikon either. I am currently in the process of making a decision, and am leaning toward the Sigma S, inspite of the weight. I have the Sigma 500mm f/4.5 fixed, and the Nikon 80-400mm which I may sell. While the CameraLabs article (below) claims the Nikon is sharper, this blog gives the tick to Sigma S. So a third opinion will be good ;)

I got Sigma Sport for 1699 euro INCLUDING tax, garantee, at a professional Sigma dealer. Nikon is 1599 euro. I amdit the Sigma is normally 1899 euro, but the Nikkor never ever had a discount push yet (showing it’s margin is very low probably). If the nikkor (wich is 700 euro more then Sigma contemporary) is included in the equation, then Sigma sport is to be included also.

PS: Set C1/C2 option in Sigma sport to Dynamic OS, and the other mode. Both those modes give a much more stable viewfinder (probably at the cost of ultimate stabilization, but it makes framing much easier.) For landscapes i prefer default setting, with it’s agressive counter movement. I rarely had bad framing with this. You know the shaking in viewinder, is mostly there because you are shaking a lot. Master handholding with a maximum (end of lens) 1 centimeter shakes, and the OS suddenly is not all that agressive, jittery etc. It’s not easy this, you need full concentration for it. But it works great.

And price alone should not qualify a lens or not for test. Sigma costed me 100 euro more, but I can update firmware any time, customize any time. Finetune much better then Nikkor, trust the lens a lot more (If you used the Sigma, you know it’s damn almost as dust proof as it can get for such a big zoom, the Nikkor/Tamron however while good, are not great in this regard). Focus speed is faster on the Sigma (except perhaps if you use D4+nikkor, according some dpreview discussions). Handling the Sigma is a pleasure. The build quality is so good, i rarely care about the weight. I numerous times handholded the lens for over 30 min (not even ‘hang’ pauzes where it’s hanging around neck, cause i have not fit the second strap yet to the lens, using the camera strap would damage mount). Also Sigma is push/pull and normal zooming. Especially the push/pull (wich they clearly on purpose gave ergonmics, by giving a firm dumb grip on the front part of the lens) is nice. And last but not least, 4x zoom rather then the Nikkor 2,5. I tried it many times, limiting myself to 200-500mm on this lens, and wow, you can miss quite some shots because of that.

I took handholded shots, standing on a ladder (not so stable thus!), of a tower 546 meter from my house. The OS worked so nice, that at 100% zooming, i could see the faces of ppl (behind metal rosters), and all the colours of their clothes. Did my first shots come out well? Ofc not. I then truly holded it as stable as I could, and tried to predict when it was the most stable to slam the shutter release each time. And my keeper rate almost tripled. So all this talk ‘to jittery, to shaky, not as good as VR’, is not true imo. The Sigma OS takes a bit getting used to (bit like a car, it’s not cause a car handles different, that it’s handling is worse).

Does the maximum aperture of 5.6 give the Nikon a big advantage in AF shooting at the long end? On most Nikon cameras, you lose AF focus points beyond F5.6. On my d7100, only the center focus point is available above 5.6 to F8.

Here in Ireland both Niki and Sigma sport cost 1600 euro when tamron and sigma 1250-1300Euro so I agree with Jason questioning but anyway very good reading. Bit unfair to Niki and Sigi as you had your Tami fo a while you know how to work with to get decent results. I am surprised of bokeh test results as I am finding with my Niki that it produce very smooth a pleasant look out of focus zones. Did you use af limiters for af tracking test?

I’m glad your Niki is giving better results bokehwise than my sample. As shown in the condor portrait, Niki had smooth OOF areas when they weren’t pinpoint highlights. But what your comment and talking to others who have shot Niki has made apparent is that there is a lot of sample variation with Niki (as with Tami and I wouldn’t be surprised if Sigi had it too).

very interesting for me the test for the performance at large distances (I’m a landscape and wildlife photographer), but I’m confused because Nikon delivers sharper and more contrasty images regard Tamron according to tests done by cameralabs! www.cameralabs.com/nikon…vr-review/ Uhm

Your comment points out how frustrating it can be lens shopping when viewing lab results – those are usually shot at close focusing distances which can have little relation to how the lens performs when shooting at greater distances outdoors. It of course gets worse with telephotos as we nature photographers are often using our long glass to shoot subjects at distances much further away than a test chart in a lab. The best way to choose a lens is to actually shoot it the way you personally shoot – hard to do now with the decline of brick and mortar camera stores, but if you don’t mind renting a copy….

I checked Cameralabs review and when looking at the long distance samples (not the indoor star chart tests) their copy of Tami seemed superior in the corners at infinity to Niki until 500mm – similar to my results. I don’t know how many copies of each lens they had to test – I only had one of each.

I have used both a Tamron and a Nikkor quite a bit and done a bit of comparing. How can you not. Toward the center at 600mm (my main area of concern), the Tamron slightly outresolves the Nikon at 500, which makes sense. The Nikon, however, is more contrasty. Of course, what never gets mentioned is print size. At normal print sizes (8×10 or 11×17 etc), any differences are irrelevant and, after a little post-processing, neither one has a clear advantage. Regardless, I feel cameralabs — who do a great job — must have had a mediocre Tamron sample. I just haven’t seen that amount of difference myself.

I love John’s reviews! Thanks. I love this quote “Nikon and Canon 600mm primes cost over ten grand. For that price, why not just buy a pet tiger and shoot the kitty with your iPhone?” …. I have already bought Nikkor 200-500mm and I am quite happy, a very good price/performance ratio by Nikon standards. I posted a few pictures mady with this lense in Vietnam here: krasnesvetlo.cz/blog/…oli-sa-pa/ (sorry, text in Czech only…)

Ha! This came to my email minutes after I ordered the Sigma Contemporary! Interestingly, the majority of the reviews I have read from various sites from “pros” state the Sigma edges out the Tamron (which is why I went with the Sigi). I am fairly certain that for the price point, one couldn’t go wrong with any of the lenses contrasted–although I wasn’t interested in the Nikon, as I shoot Canon! However, I agree with the author–what works for one person may not work for another. Great review!

Dear John Thank you for doing this review (great images you posted). Been using the Tamron since it came out, for bird photography, and has become my default lens in the field. But needed to get a decent idea of the other 2 lenses; so thanks again. Will stick with the unit I have as getting lovely images. As you said autofocus & tracking of birds is good. Amar

Very good and interesting review. My comments reflect a pretty severe bias against Tamron lenses. In general, when I have tested them they drove me nuts. There were 3 big reasons. 1. A plasticky jerk feel to the zoom and focus rings. 2. Focus rings that are too small. 3. Distinct and annoying sounds coming from image stabilization. Because of that bias I just generally don’t consider them. So, here is why I find this review so interesting. It seems like the Sigma is displaying the same types of issues I have found in general with Tamron! For this reason I would insta delete the Sigma from consideration! Like you, I like to manual focus in low contrast situations, and based on what you described the Sigma would drive me crazy! As for the rest of the review it sounds like the Tamron and the Nikon are very close. That would usually mean I would get the Nikon…but maybe not. Hauling around a extra 10oz. all day makes a difference. Bottom line, maybe I shouldn’t be dismissing Tamron out of hand anymore. ?

Tamron must have listened to you :) I didn’t find any of those three issues. All three were fairly quiet with the image stabilization. Sigi has a small sticky focus ring. In the end I think if you get a good copy of any of these lenses you’ll have little to complain about. I didn’t read other comparison reviews before writing mine so as not to be biased – however my findings are then based only on one sample of each lens.

sceptical1, I can’t speak to the Tamron lens tested here. I had a Tamron 18-270 which I had real issues with, focus speed wasn’t terrible, but a little slow for me. Didn’t like the location of the focus or zoom rings. Bought a Tamron 16-300. Love it. Those issues are gone. I need quite as I sometimes shoot wildlife close enough to touch. It is almost permanently mounted on my D7200. So I wouldn’t dismiss Tamron.

Hi John and Chattanooga, Obviously, based on reviews of this and some of their newer lenses, Tamron did listen to customer feedback. I am not in the market for new lenses but in recent years I have considered the name brands as well as Sigma. I now have 3 Sigma lenses that I use all the time. So, I am not opposed to 3rd party. In the future, I will keep an open mind about Tamron as well.

i am wondering if the Sigma AF is the same in Sports version too, or if its improved. I have the Sports but i am frustrated with the tracking accuracy performance. Besides seeming to have tracking issues with mainly inbound / outbound fast movers, it seems that is also sensitive to slight subject contrast variations, to a degree that i originally thought the demand for high contrast of moving subjects is an issue of my D7200 AF, but reading your review makes me wonder. When it nails focus the results are really very good for my standards, but it seems to not nail focus often with aviation which is my main subject (www.photographix.eu)

Have you tried tweaking focus speed with a docking station? I haven’t had one to try this, but perhaps other readers might be able to weigh in with their experience. Out of the box, the Contemporary model I tested did have the AF acquisition and tracking issues you seem to be experiencing.

Thanks John for the response. I am using the usb dock, it offers three modes for AF, default, AF motor speed priority (whatever that means) and accuracy priority. The hunt exists with AF-C in all three modes.

Was the C you tested having a continuous micro hunting with AF-C ?

(i am either shooting my motorsports or aviation with single point , 9 points or 21 points AF-C. I tested this combo a little with AF-C Auto Area and AF-C 3D but these are modes that i find not suitable for my shooting. Their results were i believe as expected, somehow erratic and average similar to AF-C Dynamic Areas.

Thanks for your in depth review of these 3 lenses. I started out with the Tami on a D7100 and really liked it a lot with few AF freezes. After upgrading to the D7200. At my cost i sent it to Tamron where they did a software update, cleaned the dust and what ever else saying it was fine. When I got it back it wasn’t long before the AF Freezes started again. So I cut my loses and looked at the Sigma. It took a couple of tries to find a good one. The Sample variation is definitely a big part in all of this. Even so I noted the AF issues you did with the Sigma so I got the USB dock and believe it’s options helped a lot. But not totally satisfied I did the Lens fine tuning getting the 16 settings via Dot Tune to plug in with the Dock. I was actually surprised with the results in the field. None of the 16 settings were off and the biggest difference from 0 was a -5. In thinking about this I’d say that if the stock AF was on the edge then it could affect both AF speed and getting the shot in focus depending on the conditions.

Question: How do you see the Lens AF speed being affected by the likes of the D4S and D810. I am hoping the new D500 AF system will help my Sigi even further

PS When reviewing the D7200 AF capabilities I felt it surpassed the AF of the D810 and D4s, but just barely and mostly in lower light scenarios. If you were having AF freezes and the lens was under warranty you should not have had to pay for Tamron to update the firmware, etc. I would contact them and ask for a refund or credit.

I got excited after reading Thomas Stirr article “Tips on Photographing Hand-Held with Telephoto Lenses” and purchased the Tami 150-600 for D800E. However I have yet to get photos as sharp as he showed (handheld) at those high ISO even using my tripod. I think I need to learn more about “sharping” in post processing and noise reduction. Until I do I primarily use it with no higher than ISO of 800 and at f8 to f10 plus not expect to print larger than 16×20. I like your article and you confirmed my thoughts that all three are not perfect but fit that void for us who not wish to pony up for the big boys. Thanks.

You might have a poor copy of the lens. As the comments are showing all three of these lenses have issues with sample variation. You might want to contact Tamron about service. First check your shutter speeds – if you still have sharpness issues shooting at 1/1600 or faster then it might be an AF fine-tune or poor sample issue.

John, thanks for the review. I have already (just a week ago) purchased the Nik 200 – 500mm for my D610. Also, have a D7000. I can’t compare with the other lens, but am happy with my results thus far (on limited shooting). I shoot mostly wildlife and birds. I have paired it with the TC-14 III for 700mm and have been pleased. I have also put the TC-17 on and it works fine with manual focussing. Nikon says the TC-17 won’t auto-focus at F/8 (sometimes it does in good light), but it’s just fine if you want to manually focus (perched birds). While weight was tossed around a bit, I have found a black rapid strap and a monopod work just fine and not seemingly a lot to carry for a few hours of birding. I would never dream of hanging this lens around my neck.

Again, thanks for the write-up. I had debated going to these other lens, but the Nikon was an easy decision, since I’m a loyal fan — and I’m not ready or willing to put out the dollars for the 500mm F/4 prime. Also, have the new 300 mm F/4 with VR. Great sharp lens and a midget compared to these. Also, with a TC it’s pretty light rig.

Here in Australia both the Tamron and Sigma cost $1200 whilst the Nikon is $1900. Whilst leaning to the Nikon to suit my D7200, is the Nikon worth the extra $700, your comments notwithstanding? I am looking for wildlife photography.

Thank you very much for this review. have been waiting to hear this comparison for a long time. I was not able to decide on which lens to buy for Shooting Birds out these 3 and went with Used Nikon 300mm F/4 with 1.4x II Teleconverter (Used). Idea was to start with Nikon 300 F/4 with 1.4x Teleconverter and then get one these 3 lens. I will definitely go with Nikon 200-500 mm lens as I can use 1.4x II Teleconverter with it.

Can we shoot birds in Flight with this combination Nikon 200-500 mm with 1.4x II Teleconverter on Nikon D7100 Body during Golden Hrs ? Probably answer to this question will determine whether I should go for this combination or not ?

I didn’t check out the bird in flight performance with teleconverter attached. I wasn’t impressed by the teleconverter performance and with BIF gaining focus is critical – I think you will be better off shooting at 500mm so you can let more light in at f/5.6 and improve focus accuracy, then crop to size. Niki is a bit slow to focus in the first place, but tracks well once locked on in my tests.

Krishna, I have had the Tammy for 2 years and the new 300mm for a year. I shoot birds on my D800. The Tammy is flexible for close and far birds in good light. Freezing action is sometimes tough, but can be done. Sometimes have trouble tracking BIF on the D800. The autofocus is the problem. This may be the D800, my tripod or my shaky hands/settings. The 300mm caught the action very well, but at a fixed distance. For the 300mm it was handheld. No experience with the Nikon or Sigma. I will tell you that you will get great shots with the Tammy. You may also miss shots. By the way, Tamron reps sometimes come to a local store. Very good PR.

Thank you for the details. I am currently having Nikon 300 mm f/4/0 ( non VR ). I got this lens after reading the reviews from the guys in this Site. I absolutely love it. I am able to get great shots with it using a Tripod.

I plan to always use tripod for most scenarios. Now I am a beginner just started into Shooting birds about a month back. I typically plan to shoot every weekend mostly go out to nearest state park etc. I am not getting good shots of the small birds like the warblers, Ruby Kinglets etc which is why I will go and get Nikon 200-500/ Tamron 150-600 or Sigma 150-600 . I will use my Nikon D7100 (mostly upgrade to d500 next year)

I have a Nikon 1.4x II Teleconverter due to which I am thinking Nikon might be a better option. But I do not want to compromise on any sharpness/ focus speed etc.

Krishna, I have found out that the most important thing in photographing birds is learning their behavior. I have gotten many “pretty” bird photos, but what I look for is unusual action or interaction. For example, I never thought I would see male ducks butt heads.Anticipating capturing the behavior with the right light and composition is the battle and the fun. I just do not want the equipment to get in the way. The new 300 f/4 works great for handheld capture, but the bird has to be at the right distance. I am going to try the tc-14eiii this year with the 300. The tammy works for me when birds vary distance. It is wonderful close up. It is good to about 500 and more difficult at 600. I added a plate and put it on an Opteka gimbal head. Otherwise, the weight would be difficult for me. By the way, on my D800 I had to tune the focus by about -15. I use the dot-tune method.

for comparison of the three budget super telephoto lenses… it was a long due… I waited for this comparison for months before I got too much tempted and got Niki 200-500 f5.6… I am happy with it for my bOrd photography.. happy for the sharpness but not always happy with the bokeh… getting adjusted to the weight… so far marching ahead with the learning curve..

I am happy that you suggest Niki for dx bodies for wildlife..

I am keen on buying the new D500 and eagerly awaiting review from photographylife… hope we will get the review within 2-3 months of it’s release

John, Thank you for this very informative review. I have the Sport version of the Sigma with the USB dock and the x1.4TC. I see none of the AF performance tracking problems that you mention. As an example I recently did an extensive shoot of a Short eared Owl hunting and it tracked the bird very well especially as there was always a confusing background. I have updated the firmware on the lens so it maybe that Sigma have improved the AF. I was also very pleased with the results with the x1.4 attached (not BIF of course).

Hi John, The Owl shoot was with a Nikon D750. I forgot to mention that it was in very poor light so the AF performance was all that I could hope for from a slow zoom. I have used the USB dock to update the firmware which I think was mainly to improve the AF with the TC attached. I have programmed C1 to focus from 5m to infinity with increased AF speed for BIF but I have not used it enough to draw any firm conclusions.

Thanks for comparison, I just recieved my Sigi (to be paired with my trusty D600) last night :)

Why did I go for the Sigi? 1) Price. In Germany the Niki is 1500€, while Tami and Sigi are both around 900-950€. That is a heck of a difference and makes even the Sigi Sport a valid option (which for me was too big and heavy). 2) USB Dock. This thing is cool. You could tweak OS behaviour (more shaky/smooth) AF Speed (fast/accurate) and AF limiter distance. And add two custom modes. And update Firmware (let’s see if one comes out) and fine-tune AF at various focal lengths (let’s hope it will not be needed).

On the other hand I have not made a single shot with the Sigi to compare it to its spiritual predecessor, the 150-500 OS (which I am selling currently).

John, thanks for the detailed and comprehensive review! Coincidentally, I happened to be looking for a telephoto zoom to take to the Galapagos, and rented the Nikon 200-500 and the Sigma 150-600 C this past weekend. I tested them on my D810 and D5500, and compared them to my existing telephoto primes (the 300mm f/4E PF and an old gray-colored 500mm f/4D AF-S II). I think I found results that were generally similar to yours, with some variations that were probably due to sample variation; I’d rented a Tamron 150-600 about half a year ago, and the images I got were far worse than the ones that you have here. For the Nikon and the Sigma, I did a number of casual (and boring) tests, viewable here: support.google.com/drive…&rd=1

A few additional observations that I found with my copies:

-The Sigma and the Nikon have about the same central sharpness at 500mm (and 600mm for the Sigma) when stopped down to f/8 -At 500mm f/8 the Nikon 200-500 and the Sigma 150-600 are remarkably close to one another. They’re both better than the 300mm f/4E PF & TC-17E II combo, and but a bit weaker than the 500mm f/4D, which in my book still justifies lugging that 7.5-pound monster around. -The Sigma is about 400g lighter than the Nikon, and most of the lens body is considerably narrower. The lens hood is also considerably narrower and more compact. It’s noticeably smaller than the 200-500, and a good bit more comfortable to lug around. This doesn’t sound like a big deal, and may sound silly coming from a guy who lugs around the 500mm f/4 everywhere, but the Sigma is a lot easier to fit into backpacks, and less tiring to handhold. With its big, broad lens hood, the Nikon is about as bulky (but lighter) than the 300mm f/2.8G VR. -The Sigma is surprisingly good at tracking birds in flight in 3D tracking mode on the D5500. I hadn’t had good experience with 3D tracking on prior Nikon bodies, but somehow it worked better than any of the Dynamic AF modes I usually use. This isn’t the case for the Nikon, which tends to lose focus and jump around more. -Both are acceptable with teleconverters (the Kenko 1.4x with the Sigma, and the Nikon TC-17E II with the Nikon) in a pinch, but I wouldn’t use them with TCs on a regular basis.

On the balance, I’m actually leaning slightly toward going with the Sigma, for the slightly better handling and convenience, customizability using the USB dock, and slightly broader range.

“-The Sigma is surprisingly good at tracking birds in flight in 3D tracking mode on the D5500. I hadn’t had good experience with 3D tracking on prior Nikon bodies, but somehow it worked better than any of the Dynamic AF modes I usually use. This isn’t the case for the Nikon, which tends to lose focus and jump around more.”

That is one of the most interesting findings i have read for the past few years, and quite strange also

I was pretty surprised to find that was the case as well. Having used a number of big Sigma and Nikon telephotos, Sigma’s AF motors do behave differently from Nikon’s; I can’t quite quantify exactly how, but different AF modes seem to work better for the Sigma and the Nikon respectively.

Surely Nikon now have the opportunity to produce two killer prime lenses, namely a 400mm f5.6 VR and a 500mm f5.6 VR, by simply removing the zoom option (and bits and pieces) and tightening up on the optic tolerances caused by no longer having the extra moving parts?

They would also be physically larger than the 200-500, unless they used PF elements, or were made with a collapsible design – at which point you might as well make it a zoom. Zooming the 200-500 to 500mm makes it almost as physically long as the 500mm f/4. Not to say a Nikon of similar design as the Canon 400mm f/4 IS would be a bad idea by any means…

Thanks for the excellent review – I too would love if you could find a way to include the Sigma Sport …

A few weeks ago I participated in a nature photography workshop and my own Nikon 80-400 (second gen) was on the short side. The workshop lead let me borrow his Tamron 150-600 for a day, but I was not really happy with the results, which could easily be my lack of technique – user error in your terms. Very few, if any, really sharp images, many way too soft (on a D800 body). So I went back to my 80-400 and included more context, which is not a bad thing. I must say that two other participants had the Tammy and were happy with their result, so unclear if it was user error, sample issue, or focus alignment with my body – it’s anybody’s guess.

Two days later I could borrow the Sigma sport that the workshop lead was shooting with for an hour or so. Virtually all images tack sharp but to be fair there also was a bit better (more) light and I used his Wimberly Sidekick on a Gitzo 5 series in stead of my BH-55 on a Gitzo GT4542 LS, so the support system could also make a difference (BTW I also learned that I “need” a gimbal-type head – workshops are costly ;-). Still I feel the Sigma Sport is significantly better (and it better be!) than the Tamron; this too is the opinion of the workshop leader, who has shot with both extensively.

Unfortunately prices in Europe are quite a bit higher than you mention (Sigma S 1,899; Nikkor 1,599; Tamron 1,149 and the Sigma C 1,139, all in Euros at a good Camera brick+web store in The Netherlands). If I ever would by one, it would be the Sigma Sport (weight holds me back more than the 65% price differential with Tamron).

As you mentioned, the Sigma Sport is very heavy and expensive in comparison to the lenses in this review. The lenses reviewed lend themselves to handholding, while you found the Sport did well on a tripod. Any long lens will give better results on a tripod and if you choose to shoot with a tripod, then it makes a lot of sense to go with the Sigma Sport if one can afford it. Were you shooting the 80-400 and Tami on a tripod or handheld?

In this case I was shooting my Nikkor 80-400 as well as the Tamron from my Gitzo GT4542 LS Tripod with the RRS BH-55 ballhead. On th Nikkor I have the Kirk replacement collar that is much better than the original Nikon one (I just wish they would sell the cheaper lenses without collars as they will be replaced anyway). The Tamron had the original collar and an Arca-Swiss compatible lens plate. While not easy it was possible (with some drag finetuning) to operate this.

The Sigma Sport was mounted with Wimberley Sidekick on a Gitzo 5 tripod (we essentially swapped the bodies ;-).

VR was off in all cases.

Normally I do also shoot the 80-400 handheld (mostly with VR on, except when shooting faster than 1/500), and that works fine. I would not care to shoot the Sport handheld indeed.

John, thank you for the great article and this very useful comparison! What about the new FUJINON XF100-400mm F4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR? Do you think that mounted on a Fuji X-Pro2 it could be a fair competitor for the three tested lenses (or, given the price point, for the Sigma S)?

That would be an interesting combo to try out. Given its price point I imagine the lens would fare well, however so far DSLRs have the edge on mirrorless when it comes to autofocus in action situations. That gap however is closing. Hopefully when that lens and body are released PL will get a chance to review them.

Thanks John For this great review. I already own the Tamron and I was ready to ditch it prior reading your review. You also stop me to believe that we should see from third third party lenses manufacturers in the near future a fast 600mm lens with a similar price to the three zoom you reviewed.

Can you comment more on the camera settings you use, for a bird in flight or a flock of them ? Do you use group area, or auto-area on a single bird or d21-d51 dynamic points and what are your other camera settings ?

I have no evidence that anybody is planning on producing a light 600mm f/5.6. That is just wishful thinking on my part. If I made the decisions at Tamron or Sigma I would have it in the works right now.

What a well-done evaluation of the three comparable lenses! I bought the Tamron last summer, and it is my only non-Nikon lens. I am amazed by its performance, especially for the cost. I feel I am a professional, as I have a lot of stuff published, my work pays for all my gear and leaves a few hundred dollars a month afterward. But I have primarily used it for daylight sports and wildlife. I didn’t know some were reportedly softer than others, but mine is tack sharp — and I am picky. I wasn’t aware of the “dust sucking,” but I’ll be careful of the environment. Thanks for the thoughtful, thorough analysis. I plan to follow your writings if I can!

Hi John, I have the Tami w/ a D800 for wildlife. I agree with you that the lens sucks dust like crazy. However, when I had the lens cleaned by Tamron, I also had my D800 serviced & cleaned. After I’ve received both of them back, I installed the Tami again. After that, I never changed lens on the body & Tami remained relatively clean. There are about 3 or 4 particles that were sucked in initially, I guess one can’t perfectly clean the camera body. Up to now, which is about 8 months after, It still remains with the 3 or 4 particles. Tamron customer service was right when they told me that it sucks in the dust inside the body. As far as the occasional malfunction of the AF is concerned, that is still an issue. I occasionally miss shots but I got to live with it. Thanks for the review. Kind regards, Rod

I have had Sigi for about 5 months now shooting it with D7200. I did the focus tune with the DOC which I believe helped. I estimate that I have accumulated approximately 10,000 shoots in the 5 months mostly birds either perched or flying and I am well pleased with the results. Before purchasing Sigi I was shooting a Nikon 80-400 VR (new style) on a D7100. The Sigi focuses at least as fast as the Nikon lens and does not hunt any more than the Nikon even when comparing them on the same camera body. Hunting mostly occurs with trying to focus on a perched bird among limbs or vines where you don’t have a clear shot.. Perhaps I got one of the better copies but that is my experience. I also do not have the problem with the view finder jumping as was mentioned in the article. BTW, the D7200 definitely focuses more reliably than the D7100 with either lens. I am watching to see the comments from users of the D500 to see if it is as good as the specifications. If it is I believe it will be a step up from the D7200 with Sigi.

John, thanks a lot for the nice reviews of affordable long telephoto zooms. I have owned the Tamron for a little over a year and have high praise for it. I was glad to hear that I was not the only one experiencing AF lock up. This happens to my copy every once in a while but as you say, by loosening the lens from the body by giving it a slight twist always solves the problem. I have cleaned the contacts on both the lens and on my D 7100 to see if this would help, but it has not solved the problem. I own the 500mm Nikon prime but the Tamron is so “light” and portable I rarely take the 500 and necessary tripod to the field anymore. Both lenses provide great results. The main difference I find is the 500 is t’s brighter in the view finder, autofocus in faster especially in low light, and the build is better. But the images of each are pretty darn close.

Hi everyone! Glad to see this review, but I am something confused now. When I read thiswww.cameralabs.com/nikon…vr-review/ my conclusion about IQ was like that: 1) Nikon, 2) Sigma C, 3) Tamron (was the worst at long focal lengthes), *) Sigma S (not so much better than Sigma C, but have big price and weight) Now I have additional information: Nikon have slightly slow AF and corners at long distances is slightly soft, Sigma C (AF and OS is not so good) and overall pleasant feedback about Tamron. But after all, I think that Nikon is best choice. But who is second? Is Sigma C a good choice or maybe Cameralabs tested a bad copy of Tamron?

If you read all the comments here it as well as compare Cameralabs results versus mine and other reviewers it is apparent that there is quite a bit of sample variation with all three lenses and manufacturers. A good copy of one brand will beat a bad copy of the other brand. My original Tami, which I regret sending in for AF issues (that I later found were endemic), easily beat out the copy of Niki I shot for the tests except at close range. The warranty replacement Tami did not. As well I have heard of Nikis with better long distance results, but haven’t seen those test results myself.

Thank you very much for your reply! I also compare Sigma C with Tamron on this site:www.the-digital-picture.com/Revie…;APIComp=0 & Sigma C with Nikon 200-500:www.the-digital-picture.com/Revie…;APIComp=0 My conclusions: 1) Nikon have CA’s at longer focal distances 2) Tamron have better center sharpness than Sigma C at longer focal distances, Tamron is faster than Sigma C at 200 & 400 mm 3) Sigma C have better corner sharpness than Tamron at 600 mm & Sigma C is better than Tamron at 150 mm So after all I slightly give advantage to the Sigma C regarding IQ. But how critical is Sigma’s AF hunting? And can I hope for future firmware upgrade of this issue?

Thanks for a great review John. I’m considering the Tamron to photograph birds with my D7100. You recommended the Tamron for Nikon users however you also said “but be picky and make sure you get a good copy.”

My question is how would I know a “good copy” versus a “bad copy before making the purchase?” Is it the auto-focus that accounts for a “bad copy?” This makes me question the quality control of the production of this lens.

Hi Valerie I use the Tamron with my D7100 + D750 and mostly at 600 mm. It was my first lens above 300 mm and its not an easy task to use it the first time. I recommend strongly you read the article from Thomm Stirr and practice it before making a decision. It made quite a change in my success shots.photographylife.com/tips-…oto-lenses

This is such a good question I have added the reply as an addendum at the end of the article as well as below:

Addendum

Our readers’ comments have shed some good light on this subject. Many have replied to defend their lens choice saying it didn’t display a weakness I found in the copies I tested. This reminds us that all lenses, whether they are third party or Nikon or Canon, are prone to sample variation which raises the question of how does one know if they got a good copy or not.

The short answer is if you enjoy shooting with your lens and are happy with your results then you have a good copy.

The long answer is to do the testing as outlined in the article – do it at multiple focal lengths, apertures and distances and carefully scrutinize the results. This is very tedious. If you don’t have other copies to compare to then discerning sharpness issues will be difficult unless it’s an issue with decentering which causes the image to be softer on one side of the frame than the other. Bear in mind how you plan to use the lens and how important issues like corner sharpness or sharpness up close versus far away are to you. Remember these are “bargain” supertelephoto zooms, so don’t expect them to perform like $10000 primes. Remember too that you will be postprocessing your images and can add contrast (easy) and sharpness (to a small degree). Go ahead and postprocess some images as you would and view your results at final output (how big you realistically might print it out, 4″x6″?, 8″x10″?, 16″x20″?, 30″x45″?) and choose a lens that meets your needs. If you share your photos via the web and don’t shoot for publications or print big, you don’t need an expensive pro prime. If you handhold your sharpness will suffer compared to shooting on a tripod so bear that in mind too. Be realistic and don’t fret over weakness seen at 1:1 on your computer that it is indiscernible in final output.

If you’re unhappy with your copy return it and try a new one. If you don’t like that then try a different copy or a different manufacturer’s lens.

Thank you for the post. Having read your post and then all the comments I decided to try these lens before I decide which one to go for. I am a bit obsessed with sharpness and I love my Nikon 300 f/4 non VR with 1.4x when shot with monopod.

I did try out Nikon 200-500 mm last week hand held. I must say its a mixed bag. I loved some shots taken for birds, which I could crouch and get closer like Savannah Sparrow etc. Those were excellent. But the lens did not perform well for birds in flight. The autofocus always seems to struggle even in good light and I ended up getting blurred pics.

May be because this is the first time I shot with long telephoto lens at 500mm. I will try to check Sigma Contemporary and Sports Lens. I would love to hear your comments on Sports version. I am using Nikon d7100 body which is a DX body. I am seriously considering used Nikon 200-400mm VR lens which costs me about 2500$.

I guess this is a really silly question but I had to ask. If we do not like a lens copy (bad Autofocus/Image Quality) can we return it and get a new one ? How does this work for all the 3 brands (Nikon/Sigma/Tamron)

Your best bet is to buy from a retailer with a good return policy. Most of my purchases are from B&H and they have a no hassle return policy. I have returned a D4s and a 70-200 and gotten replacements that were up to my specs with zero hassle. I also returned a Leica I didn’t like and got a refund. Not all retailers will do this, so check before you buy.

Don’t understand how Nikkor 200-500 can have more reach on a D7200 or D500 then on a D810.. 36MP / 1.5 = 24MP So a crop from the 36MP frame of the D810 gives the exact same “reach” as the D7200, and more reach then the 20MP of the D500, correct?

Crop factor is linear, but sensors are measured by pixels wide x pixels high. So the math goes like this 36 MP divided by 1.5 (wide) divided again by 1.5 (high) = 16 MP which is the resolution of the D810 in DX crop mode. In 1.3x crop mode the D810 yields 24 MP files.

I wish I’d had access to this article two years ago (but then the Nikon lens wasn’t available then anyway).

Having read this, it’s clear I must have had a really bad copy of the Tamron lens – although I enjoyed it, the AF drove me nuts – it was so slow and unreliable that flying birds were out of the question and quite often it just wouldn’t respond at all on my D7100. I would have to focus manually and then let the AF take over.

The Nikon by contrast has a relatively rapid and quiet AF and I can see that I’m going to have huge fun tackling demanding subjects like flying birds.

Rob I felt the same for quite sometimes, my only tack sharp images were with the use of a flash (better beamer). Have you tried to follow Thom Stirr handholding techniques in the following article.photographylife.com/tips-…oto-lenses Have you tried to set in the menu a3: Focus Tracking with Lock-On to or see page 232 in your D7100 manual.to make your AF more responsive? I set my iso to ”auto-iso” with the speed set to ”AUTO”. I can even increase or reduce the speed by half a stop to one stop. regards Luc

I have been using Tamron 150-600 since last 1 year with my Nikon D750. Today i got chance to test Nikon 200-500 with my D750 body, autofocus speed felt a bit slower than Tamron. But i was impressed with sharpness it produced. Not the case that I hate Tamron now, but today’s experience made me think about benefit of selling tamron to buy Nikon 200-500. Will that be a good decision or it’s very less value gain for cost involved?

Another wiser option could be use Tamron for 1-2 years more and hope some better lens than Nikon 200-500 gets introduced in market.

I appreciate reviews by professional photographers who use these lenses in the field, so thanks for taking the time. It’s time consuming enough to test one lens to see if it’s a keeper, let alone three.

With the exception of mirrorless, it’s been my experience that every lens I have has to be micro focus adjusted (AF Fine Tune on Nikon). The Tamron 150-600mm has a -5 on my D800e and a +8 on my D300 at 500mm. This is tedious and time consuming to set, even with a focus testing aid. I have also found that there is a slight difference in auto focus accuracy at shorter focal lengths vs. longer. I set mine at what distances I use most often.

I have a Tamron 150-600 with a Nikon D7200 body which I use for bird/wildlife photography. I have set it for aperture priority with an aperture between f 8 – f 11 and ISO 800. Other then sorting out the settings, have two gripes with the lens.

Firstly, the lens is soft at 600 mm and I don’t tend to set it above 550 mm. Secondly, it seems to hunt around for focus when I’m trying to photography birds of prey in flight – or suddenly freeze which means that I switch off the camera and then switch it on again.

I have used a Nikon 200-500 lens which has no such problems.

Have I a problematic lens or should I part-exchange it for the Nikon 200-500, in due course?

I would first send your Tamron in for service and tell them it isn’t sharp. That is an issue they can probably improve – as to the AF freeze-ups I’ve had my Tami in multiple times to service for this issue with no improvement. My opinion is the freeze-ups are an endemic issue with this lens.

Hey John, just wanted to say thanks. Your criteria for testing is excellent, and the pragmatism displayed is rare :) I’d like to see more reviews like this. Also I had no idea that lenses could show different sharpness characteristics at different focus points – makes sense thinking about it, but you live and learn. I’ve had 2 tami lenses; 70-300 (best bang-for-buck lens ive ever owned) and 70-200 F2.8. (Focus issues and soft). This review is making me think I might take a chance on the tamron though.

I have the Sigma and you are definitely right about 600mm and hunting. What you have to do is back it out to 500 or 550 and the focusing improves dramatically for birds in flight. I have no idea why as it is the same aperture at 500 and 600. My thinking is it might be something they can fix with a firmware update.

Hi John Congrats for this article, it is a blessing stopping me from procastination (should I replace my Tammi for the new Nikon)

I just received my D750 (shutter counts 4225) from Nikon repair center for a shutter replacement a few days ago. I had a big problem with brown spots appearing on my sensor at F16-F32 and even at F8 when I will shoot a landscape for the sky with a -1 to -2 stops under-exposure. I tried to clean it with eclipse & even Smear Away from visible dust without much success. At Nikon they were able to clean it with a 90% success. My question is, can it be it caused by the Tami pumping oil with air to the sensor during focusing, or is it a problem with the shutter mechanism projecting grease or debris on the sensor ?

I don’t have a definitive answer to your question, but as I haven’t heard of this issue anywhere else and there are a lot of Tamis out there I doubt it is the lens. That said the rear elements of Tami do move while zooming and could create a pumping action. My experience with Tami dust pump issues is that the majority of dust ends up in the front of the lens on the element behind the front element, not towards the rear. Your comment does make me want to be more careful of cleaning out the rear of Tami’s lens barrel though, to keep dust from entering the camera.

Are you certain the spots on your sensor were oil? Pollen is especially sticky and hard to clean off so that may be another culprit. If Nikon replaced your shutter for oil spot issues, not a shutter malfunction, then it seems shutter oil might be the issue.

I am using Nikon 200-500 on my d3300 since last 4month… I am happy with the results with Nikon 200-500…. But I am unhappy with my d3300 as the focus points are less… hence more missed opertunities…. D3300 otherwise a great camera… For wildlife and birds…I think d7200 or d500 (if you can afford) are best matched for 200-500 lens having more focus points…

Hi all For all of you who are not happy with their lense specially at 500-600 mm, thinking they have a bad copy I suggest you try to use the ”dot tune method” (see youtube) to correct the AF-tuning before trying to get rid of your lens. You can find this easy and accurate way to correct the AF at one focal length. In my case my tami is used mostly at 600 mm, and after correcting it (20 minutes work and free) I am stunned by the difference in precision I am getting on my D7100 (900 mm). I always blamed my technique of shooting primary. regards Luc

Please use English in your future articles. The use of Sigi, Niki, and Tami, in your your review makes the information presented seem amateur and juvenile. Saving a letter or two, and compromising the presentation of your information with silly abbreviation’s is unprofessional. You are presenting useful content, but each abbreviation made me shake my head and want to stop reading. I may be old school, but this is an article, not a text.

Was wanting a more scientific approach to the sharpness and other factors. Really wanted to get some insight on the Nikon 200-500. Can understand field testing, but pictures of charts or the same brick wall would be way more helpful.

Was also wanting it compared to Canon 400mm 5.6 in that that lens has more reach than Tam or Sig once you crop the pictures. It’s just sooooooo much sharper.

I’m a relatively new with all this, but I have to say….. I was super disapointed with the Tamron AO11 150-600. I’m using a D3300. I have a Tamron 70-300 4-5.6 which I think is a great value, and gets sharp pics for the money. I’ve also never missed a photo that I didn’t expect to miss with it. So I went for a Tamron AO11 150-600. I was crushed. Fortunately, I read the feedback here, and went STRAIGHT to B&H, the lens was soft, and slow. So I returned it and went for another one, and it was WORSE!!!!!

Now, the worst part is you can’t micro calibrate the lens with a d3300, so I was just pissed off with the Tamron.

Went back to B and H, got a Sigma C and never looked back. I picked up the dock for it as well, just downloaded the AF speed increase drivers, and haven’t had to micro-calibrate. The lens is pretty sharp and even focused. I wish I just went for the Sigma in the first place.

I don’t understand this article. All these lens are for wildlife photography. Especially birds. Why anyone would care that corners are not that sharp? you will try to focus with the center focus point as it has better sensitivity so af will be faster. If you use converter, it is really significant. So the topic will be in the middle and then you will crop. We need the reach to fill the frame, still most of the case you will crop the hell out of the picture. Corner sharpness is for object architecture photos, here you rarely see it. 2nd. Tamron slightly sharper, be picky etc… How you know from sigma you got a good copy and your comparison is meaningful? In tamron you can use af fine tune built in your camera. In sigma with the docker you can define fine-tuning far major focallength, and usual distances, then internal logic will find out your optimal fine tuning value. This is a significant information. With sigma you don’t need to be picky, you can adjust it. I didn’t see this in the conclusion at all. So in my opinion this article is not just bad, but really misleading.

Thanks for this outstanding review, John! The comments are great as well. I appreciate that people come here here to discuss, not argue! I recently purchased the Nikon D750 for wildlife. I was scared of these “budget” lenses, but your point that sharpness is irrelevant to a shot you never got just makes too much sense to ignore. I would add one thing, and something I have to constantly remind myself: a camera/lens will do its job best if I do my job, and if I want great wildlife shots, my job is to get close – build blinds, get dirty, be patient, and, yes, bait! (Where legal ; )

Thanks for the kind words Hunter. And yes, I’ll take the bait you just dangled to remark that in my opinion baiting animals to take their picture is an abhorrent practice. For the record, I have never set out bait for any of the animals I photograph. To do so would alter their natural behavior and can put them at risk for becoming less wary of humans who might do them harm. Furthermore, it’s usually pretty easy to pick out the photos of the baited animals (the owl flying straight at the camera to grab the mouse bait in the snow is the perhaps the most cliche shot in this regard). The behavior of baited animals is predictable and so to are the resultant photos. The wildlife photos that really stand out are those rare moments of natural behavior captured by the patient (you got that right), dirty (you got that right too) photographer who has gotten to know his/her subject and built the trust with that animal so much that the animal goes about it’s natural wild behavior. These are those once-in-a-lifetime shots that resonate with editors, competition judges and the public in general. I hope that you and our other readers think about this and go out and try for the unpredictable, unbaited situations and come back with spectacular shots. In the long run I think you’ll find the rewards much greater.

Excellent article. I have the Sigma ‘C’ version currently on a Nikon D7200. Possibly some hunting errors with BIF but the other variable not talked about much is human error i.e me ! My friend does better with his Canon 7D mkii and 100-400 but he is also 43 not 67 yrs old,doesn’t need glasses, has excellent eyesight and has been a marksman. (Only as part of his pest control job I add). So who knows! But notwithstanding I find this lens very sharp at 600mm f6.3 and with progressively improved minor sharpening software and cameras with better high ISO performance the days of heavy, expensive f4 600mm primes could be numbered! I agree wtih not including the SPort. The differences are well documented and the wight issue makes it part of a different comparison in my opinion. And you have to stop somewhere – such and such a lens is only $500 more soon leads you to the $5000 lenses as well!

What do you mean when you advise to be picky and to buy a good copy? -> Any advice on how you can know/test in advance the optical quality of a particular lens versus the one sitting next to it on the shelf?

Good Morning John, I had reached out to Tom as I didn’t know he wasn’t still an active shooter. I am looking at buying a new camera the D7100 or D7200. I have a chance to buy the Sigma 150-500 it is practically new for 500. That is a far cry from the 900+ dollar price of a 150 600 which I would love to have. Here is the thing I doubt I will have many opportunities to use a lens with this kind of reach. Maybe once a year on vacations. I will be in Alaska later this year and I am sure I could use this Sigma lens to shoot eagles, Do you think this older lens will have the speed for that? I am very frugal at spending money and so the price difference seems like a lot. But I am also looking for good advice. Do you think I should spend the extra money and get the Sigma or Tamron 150 600 or the Nikon 200 500? Thanks

Jerry The Sigma 150-500 is not as sharp as the the new Sigma 150-600 or the equivalent Tamron. Theses new lenses have probably a much better AF system. I have a D7100 (only 5 raw pics in burst mode) but the D7200 is much better mainly because it has a much larger buffer and a slightly better AF. I struggle between the D7200 and the D500 before making my choice on the D500

Hi John, Thank you very much for this review! I am about to buy a super telephoto zoom lens and these 3 are on my shortlist. I have been reading some articles and also point out that Sigma’s tele is performing better than Tamron’s tele at the far end (500/600 mm) where I usually be using it. And that the loss of focus shooting with continuous AF on moving objects or animals was resolved by firmware update made by Sigma in 2016. Have you tried the Sigma’s tele with the new firmare? Can you comment on those improvements that brought Sigma´s tele to the #1 spot of budget lenses for widlife photography? Thanks. António

I shot with a Tamron 150-600 on my D7100 for some years. Autofocus speed and accuracy were always a frustration with this combination. – Sometimes good (in good light), othertimes ‘just’ out of focus. I now have the Nikon D500 with the same Tamron 150-600 mounted on it, and all focus problems have gone. The 150-600 Tamron is a ‘far better lens’ on the D500 – no comparison. I imagine that the other two lenses tested would be better also. Autofocus is equally related to the camera and the lens. I recommend the D500. Regards Mike

Good to know and I suspected as much. Way too many are using consumer even entry cameras. And wanting these large zooms to behave like they do for the more capable camera bodies.

Shooting a D90 last 5 years so knew to hold off on a zoom like this. As foresaw problematic situations on this body. And seriously considering a D500 as my next upgrade in next 3 or 4 months. And one of these lenses a tad bit later.

“The 150-600 Tamron is a ‘far better lens’ on the D500 – no comparison.” This is also my experience with my D7100 & D500. I suspect the D7100 shutter vibration is part of the problem. I can shoot now at slower speed with the D500 and have much less blurred shots, with tack sharp focus.

I have a nikon d90. Yes I would like to upgrade but I cannot afford a new body and a telephoto lens. I want to take pictures of grand kids playing sports and like the tamron 150-600. the price you link to is I think 969.00. Is that still a viable price? And can my d90 handle this new toy properly.

This is an amazing in-depth review! I have a Nikon D7100 with a 70-300 mm lens that I primarily use for bird photography (as a hobby). I am thinking of buying the next level lens and after reading your article, I am leaning toward Tamron. They recently released a G2 version (A022, which is ~$400 more expensive than the A011 lens). Do you have thoughts on whether that would be a justifiable splurge?

Probably a good review, but lose the nicknames, You lost me comparing “Niki” to “Nikkor”… maybe use the proper names, cause I thought these were the same and have no idea what you were talking about, didnt even finish reading the rest of the article.

Is upgrading to the tamarin G2 from the older G1 worth the cost I was only offered $75 for the G1 on a trade in for the G 2 lens. I shoot with a Nikon D 7000 ( probably will upgrade to D 500 soon) and Nikon D 810. I shoot wild life, BIF and landscapes (also have Nikon 28-300 and 24-70 and 70-200)

Hi All, I have read the review twice!! I am torn between Nikon 200-500 and Tamron 150 – 600 G2. Although Nikon is a little bit chip compared to G2. But I do not mind spending that much for better sharpness. Now — every other reviews and forums and users I find out on net is saying outrightly that Nikon 200-500 is lot sharper than Tami Only in this review I found that Tami will give sharper result compared to niki in certain condition! But I am so impressed with this review that I decided to go with what I find here best for my need Now I am stating what I understood from review and want to confirm it…..

1. At 500 mm with subject being max 40 feet distance niki have better sharpness 2. But at 500 mm with subject being 80-100 feet distance tami will give better sharpness? This second part is not covered in any discussion on the net and I want to confirm once again. Remember my interest is only in centre sharpness and I am not at all bothered about corner sharpness. If point number two is right, then why for nikon users niki is better lense as most of the time is bird or wildlife photography subject is almost always more distant than 40 feet. I do not if john will get this notification after two years but really want to have his comments. Others who can guide me also welcome.

“If point number two is right, then why for nikon users niki is better lense as most of the time is bird or wildlife photography subject is almost always more distant than 40 feet.”

The reason is because most Nikon users believe that having “Nikkor” printed on the lens barrel makes for a sharper lens than any third party short of Zeiss could produce. Of course this is rubbish. Most Nikon lenses are excellent (and my bag is filled only with Nikon optics save my G2), but the 200-500mm in my opinion is pretty average. The G1 and G2 Tamrons in my experience both are sharper, focus quicker, and have more reach. They also have good VR, but so does the Nikon. The G2 is sharper than the G1. I would choose the G2 over the G1 regardless of price. The only time I felt the 200-500 outperformed the G1 was at close distance, which is likely similar to the distance lens charts are shot from. If birds were as cooperative as lens charts, then this would be great. However…

I have not shot the G2 side by side with the 200-500, but I have compared the G2 with the G1 and found it superior optically. (And I feel the G1 bests the 200-500, hence the G2 bests it by even more.)

The downsides to the G2 are the focus lock-ups (usually only if you have shot several hundred frames in a row without remounting the lens) and the the light touch needed to accidentally move the switches (AF/MF, focus limiter, etc.). I tape my switches down to solve the latter and just have to either re-rack my lens during slow times, or put up with missing the occasional shot due to a focus lock up (which is real frustrating when it happens). For me though, I’d be more frustrated know 90-95% of my images weren’t as sharp as they could be, than I’m frustrated with the lock-ups. Other people disagree.

Last year I took a trip to a deserted island (except for tens of thousands of birds) with a rugged (read wet) small boat approach I didn’t want risk my supertele primes on. I took the G2 as my only long lens and came back with a slew of images I’m proud to have in my portfolio, both from close up and further away. The G2 is an incredible lens for the money.

If you need further convincing I’d suggest shooting both lenses side by side and make your own opinion.

Thanks a lot John!! For taking time and giving such a clarifying answer. Really thankful to you, that finally with your comment I am able to reach a decision after two months. I was not sure that you would be replying 2 years after your original review. Thanks again. Just one small question — why Island you went to?

Thank you for this review. Would the the 200-500 perform better (sharper, focus accuracy) than the 80-400? I also need the 80-200 zoomrange so I would use it together with a 70-200 2.8 (still need to decide between nikon, tamron or sigma) Regards, Linda

Comment Policy: Although our team at Photography Life encourages all readers to actively participate in discussions, we reserve the right to delete / modify any content that does not comply with our Code of Conduct, or do not meet the high editorial standards of the published material.